Dodgers fans turn to lucky jerseys, sweaters, rosaries and prayer to help team win the title

Despite the anxious messages hitting his phone Wednesday evening, San Gabriel Valley native David Gonzales didn’t fret.The army veteran was about two hours into a 12-hour drive from his Rio Rancho, New Mexico, home to his cousin’s house in El Monte for a long-planned family reunion — a family of baseball fans.Game 5 of the World Series was in the third inning at the time, and Gonzales’ Los Angeles Dodgers had fallen five runs behind the New York Yankees.“Friends and family were very nervous,” Gonzalez said about the rush of texts.And they had right to be: No team had ever come back from a five-run deficit to clinch the World Series.Not Gonzalez, though.

“I wasn’t too concerned,” he said.“I was wearing my lucky jersey and I knew we would come back.”Gonzales was one of several fans attending Friday’s victory parade who said they had patted shirts and jerseys, kissed rosaries and prayed during the postseason games, turning to faith, ritual, superstition and luck in the hope that it would push their beloved team over the top.Dodgers fan David Gonzales drive in from New Mexico for the parade wearing his jersey he bought at Dodger Stadium in 2006 after he just returned home from deployment in Iraq.

#Dodgers #DodgersParade pic.twitter.com/UUyWx1pifnGonzales departed at 4 p.m., about an hour before the first pitch of a game in which the Dodgers rallied to defeat the Yankees, 7-6, to clinch their eighth title.He wore the Nike blue-and-white Dodgers jersey that he’d purchased in 2006 right after returning home from deployment in Iraq.His cousin, Christine Ortiz, had ushered him back into civilian life by taking him to a Dodgers game, but Gonzalez wasn’t quite ready for it.“I didn’t have a shirt for the game, so I bought one of the first ones I saw along with my cousin and we’ve kept them ever since,” Gonzales said.

“They became our lucky shirts, including for Game 5.”Gonzales and his wife Teresa reached El Monte on Thursday morning, ...